David Harewood: 'put Streatham on the tourist map'

David Harewood, the Homeland actor, is the face of a new campaign promoting London as one of the world’s cultural capitals.

The GREAT Britain campaign highlights autumn exhibitions including JMW Turner at Tate Britain, Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy, Sherlock Holmes at the Museum of London and the Made in Dagenham musical at the Adelphi Theatre.

But Harewood also advises tourists to leave the West End and discover lesser-known areas – including the much-maligned south London suburb of Streatham, his home for the past 12 years.

He said:

"I moved to London when I was 18 and just really fell in love with the place. I do love my home city of Birmingham but I love the pace of London. I think people who have spent a long time in London would consider themselves Londoners. I’m a city person. I think I’d get rather bored in the country.

Get yourself down to Streatham. It’s got a really bad reputation but there are some fantastic places that are just opening up. We have the best oven-baked pizzas anywhere in London at Bravi Ragazzi (2a Sunnyhill road SW16). It just won a Tripadvisor award for best Italian restaurant in south London. They’re very friendly and you’re lucky to get a seat because they’re packed, but the pizzas are freshly baked in a clay oven and they are really superb. Just down the road we’ve got the newly decked-out Manor Arms (13 Mitcham Lane, SW16), serving gastrofood. And there’s a number of places now opening on the High Street which are great. It’s a very unpretentious place with some great people.

So many places in south London are starting to really take off now. Obviously a lot of tourist spots are in central London and people check out north London, but south London is a fantastic place. Brixton Market, my God – you can get food from all over the world. There’s actually a champagne bar in Brixton Market! It’s gentrification gone crazy – some people would lament it, some people think it’s fabulous. There’s also the Black Cultural Archive, which has just opened, a fabulous building in Brixton. So Brixton’s changing. I would particularly recommend Fish, Wings & Tings (2 Atlantic Road, SW9) which is run by a friend of mine, a Trinidadian called Brian. It’s really tasty Caribbean food.

Brixton Market (Photo: Alamy)

Seven Dials in Covent Garden is probably my favourite area to walk around, closely followed by the South Bank. The South Bank on a summer evening is just wonderful. Any city with a river running through it is an incredibly romantic place. And I love Soho at dusk because it's full of people leaving work, getting ready for the night.

Any time you’ve got a spare hour, I would encourage you to pop down to Tate Modern. There are some really fantastic galleries in Britain and there’s a new Sherlock Holmes exhibition which isn’t just for anoraks – it’s for anybody who has a love of Sherlock Holmes. And Somerset House is fantastic. The last time I went there it was for a Ferrari launch and there were 50 Ferraris parked outside.

There are so many fine restaurants and bars in London now – there seems to be a culinary explosion going on. Palomar (34 Rupert Street, W1) is definitely worth a visit. The Tramshed (32 Rivington Street, EC2) in east London is a really fantastic place. Vista (2 Spring Gardens, St James's, London SW1A) is a place very few people know about. It’s a rooftop bar by Trafalgar Square which has great views. You don’t really get rooftop bars in London and that’s certainly one to check out. South of the river, Three Monkeys in Balham (5 Fernlea Rd, London SW12) is a great spot for a bar.

One of the things you realise when you’re in Los Angeles is that everything shuts down at 1am. London really has become this 24-hour city where you can eat, drink and party until the wee small hours and come out of a place and realise you need your sunglasses. Get a copy of Time Out and plunge in. It’s a vibrant, fresh city. London rivals some of the greatest cities in the world. You’ve got architecture, history, culture, theatre, music, clubbing, fantastic food and some wonderful hotels springing up all over the place. The traffic is getting better, even though there’s quite a lot of roadworks at times. I think our transport system rivals any underground system in the world.

We could probably do with a few more piazzas - we don’t really do piazzas in London, which they do in places in Italy and Spain, but I do think there’s an explosion of outdoor dining and outdoor bars that are a rival for anywhere in the world."